Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America (review)

Jones' lively and well-written book traces the evolution of the veterinary profession in the twentieth century from the "horse doctor" of 1900 to today's scientific practitioner. Along the way, she writes a cultural and economic history of animal-human relations in this era. Jones shows that the veterinary profession cannot be considered in isolation from the larger picture of the role of animals in American society. Her theoretical framework derives from Simmel, who argued that value—expressed as price in economics—was the expression of a complex of social, cultural, and psychological factors.¹ Jones successfully applies this approach to the case of domestic animals. She argues that the value of certain species, which has ebbed and flowed during the century, is closely reflected in veterinary theory and practice.

Jones' book consists of a series of case studies that progress chronologically, examining key moments rather than presenting a complete history of veterinary medicine in the twentieth century. Her chapters on horses and on the rise of pet keeping illustrate her methods particularly well. Horses were by far the most valuable domestic animal in 1900. They provided the main form of local transportation, and they were often the most expensive item in a household. Yet the value of horses to their owners was social, moral, and emotional as well as financial. Jones employs a variety of sources, from personal accounts to government documents to magazine advertisements, to tell the story of the horse's demise in American society. Although horses had largely disappeared from urban streets by 1930, they departed much more slowly from the family farm.

As the horse declined from its dominant position, "horse doctors" turned for employment to other domestic animals, notably such food animals as cattle. The federal Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), founded in 1884, played a critical role in this transition, establishing the expertise of veterinarians in the protection of the public's health by means of the new bacteriology. The BAI helped to shape the profession, not least byemploying many veterinarians to administer vaccines and monitor animal health.

By the 1950s, the advent of the factory farm had transformed the relationship between Americans and food animals. Although specialists in "herd health" were still necessary, veterinarians paid increasing attention to domestic pets, which assumed some of the emotional and economic value that the family horse or cow once held. They also reflected the growth of consumer culture. First dogs and then cats benefited from advances in animal science and veterinary care. The control of rabies (and later of other diseases) by vaccination came to occupy the center of veterinary practice. The steadily increasing value of pets led to the development of animal hospitals and other institutions and practices that increasingly paralleled human medicine. This parallel included the use of animals in research on human and animal diseases. Jones' account of the twentieth-century anti-vivisectionist movement from the point of view of veterinarians offers a welcome contrast to most other accounts.